Paige Alise: Reminiscing

Seeing as it is Valentine's Day and my husband is out of town, I thought I would write a blog post about love....

just kidding.

But I am going to write a blog post about how we first met (so I guess it is kind of about love)...because for some reason I never wrote the story down and I have been thinking about it all day today... and I need a break from homework!

Here it goes.......

So, I didn't know it at the time, but Anthony and I had a really close mutual friend, Natalie Gertsch (Ek)! I can't remember where Natalie and I were going, but I remember her bringing up a guy she worked with and how she wanted to set us up. I remember her telling me he was in Arizona on a trip, his name was Anthony, he was from Ramona, and had some other girl he was interested in...ha! I remember saying something along the lines of "Well, we can take care of that!"*** (in reference to the other girl). And then I remember laughing and we moved on to another topic and I didn't think twice about this mysterious Anthony guy. I actually didn't remember this conversation until Anthony and I had been married over a year...oops.

****Disclaimer- I was mostly joking about this comment. Mostly. I mean, I didn't even know the guy yet!

Fast forward a week or two:
My singles ward (a group of single LDS young adults) was putting on a bonfire at moonlight beach for our Monday "family night" activity. Natalie and I had made plans to go together and hang out for a bit. While we were sitting in my room before going to the bonfire, Natalie was busy texting away on her phone and I was trying to figure out what to wear (story of my life). She told me she was inviting her friend Anthony from Frogs to the bonfire and I (not making the connection between this Anthony and the Anthony we had talked about briefly weeks before) didn't think anything of it and thought it was great she was inviting more people...the more the merrier, right?! (later I found out that the only reason he agreed to go was so that he could attempt to get a different girls number and not the one mentioned in the previous paragraph) Once we got to the bonfire, I honestly don't remember what we were up to until Anthony showed up...pathetic, I know. It was probably 30 minutes after we got there that he finally showed up. I remember seeing someone in all black, carrying a motorcycle helmet, and wearing a baseball cap walk up to our group and start chatting with Natalie though. I was obviously immediately intrigued by this stranger. From this point on, (this is embarrassing) I kind of kept tabs on that "boy with the motorcycle helmet." Once I got to Natalie, I asked who the mystery guy was and she goes, "Oh, thats Anthony from Frogs! I will introduce you." She then kept good on her word and introduced me to Anthony and his friend, we will call him Tom. We talked for awhile, Tom was making us all laugh, and someone came up and made some kind of crack at me being a great girl to take on a date, or something like that. Anthony somehow disappeared after calling me "facebook girl" (I was looking at facebook or something..) and so Tom and I continued to talk. Meanwhile, the whole time I was talking to Tom, I couldn't help but notice Anthony making his rounds to all the girls in my ward! hahahaha!! I immediately labeled him a player, but couldn't get over the fact that he was super cute!

Fast forward to the end of the bonfire:
After most of our ward events, we would rally a group to go get mexican food...no matter what time it was. So naturally, after a beach bonfire, we got a group to go to Filibertos. Anthony and Tom agreed to go with us and I was secretly hoping I could get a ride on the back of that motorcycle. I ended up riding in a car, I know, boring. After burritos, Natalie, Anthony, Tom, and I were walking out to the cars/motorcycle when Anthony handed me his phone to put my number in! ha! We then all parted our seperate ways and Natalie and I got in her car to leave. While we were eating I had sent her a text that said "set me up!" and she had shown it to Anthony so once we were in the car I immediately asked her what the heck that was and that I wanted to be set up with Anthony!! To make a long story short, they (Natalie and Anthony) were going to try to set me up with Tom!! haha! Oops, right?! I immediately begged Natalie to fix the whole situation, which she did because she is such a great friend.

After that night, Anthony and I were pretty much texting 24/7. He took me on our first date the Saturday after, it was St. Patricks day, and invited me to go with him to L.A. to pick up his dad from the airport that night. I declined since I had committed to a St. Patty's party earlier and had volunteered to bring some treats, but let's just say he had no problem finding someone else to go with him ;) (sorry Anthony!!). I invited him to go to church with me the next day though and dinner with my family after. He gladly accepted the invitation and I was pretty excited to get another day with him! After dinner on Sunday, we sat and talked until 1 or 2 in the morning... Stay with me because this is where all his charm comes into play (hahaha). We were sitting on the couch and had decided he better go since we both had work the next morning. He turned to me and said "Would you be upset if I didn't kiss you right now?" HAHAHA how cheesy, right!?!! Of course I said, "Nope." I couldn't give in that easily. Especially to that line!

Except, we still ended up kissing.

oops.

And that was the beginning of it all. Within a week, we were inseparable. We started spending every free minute together. I would walk up and say hi after I had gotten off work (we worked across the street from each other this whole time!) and he would come hang out with me when he got off work. It was pretty great if I may say so myself.

So, in honor of Valentine's day, there is the beginning of our story!

and just for fun here are a few other great memories I don't ever want to forget:

1) In order to make our relationship "official" we had a conversation that went something like this:

A: "So, what would you say if I told you that I wanted to date other girls?"

Me: Slightly crushed, "Well, I would say if that's what you want, then that's fine!"

A: "Well, that's not what I want." OH the cheese that came out of this boys mouth and I L-O-V-E-D every word!

Me: "Oh?"

A: "I just want to date you!"

Me: "Well good, because I was actually going to be kind of upset if you really wanted to date other girls too."

2) Me telling Natalie that I totally had Anthony hooked....and Natalie FORWARDING that text to him!! That's what I get for being so cocky...

3) Late night burrito runs and having to drink numerous amounts of 5 hour energies in order to make it through the weeks...I think my heart/body is still recovering from all of those...

4) The fact that I was the stereotypical girls-love-motorcycles girl....Let's be honest, I was smitten by the whole mystery man on a motorcycle thing.

5) Everyone in my ward calling him "the motorcycle guy"

6) and lets not forget how he tricked me and surprised me with his proposal! Thats for another blog post though...

Just for memories sake, here are some of our first photos together (I am a cheeseball and love looking at things like this):